


By The Time We Parted Way

by zarabithia



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-12
Updated: 2007-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-20 20:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14901153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zarabithia/pseuds/zarabithia
Summary: Conner celebrates his twenty-first birthday with a man in a pair of tight fittin' jeans.





	By The Time We Parted Way

There were times when Conner felt truly selfish.

The first time had come when Pa'd had his first stroke, causing Conner's dad to pick up and move them from Metropolis - Conner's birthplace and an awesome, bustling city full of life and the kind of freedom Kansas didn't know the meaning of - to the farm to "help out."

The second time had come when Dad had made it clear that they were _staying_ in the godforsaken middle of nowhere town in _Kansas_. It had taken Conner a good month to stop being angry and start feeling guilty, but several extra chores around the farm later, when he'd seen Pa choke on something as simple as tomato soup, Conner's conscience had finally kicked in.

He'd decided then that living on a farm wasn't that bad - even one in _Kansas_ \- and that he'd been pretty selfish in putting his happiness above his family's.

In the years that had passed since that day, Conner had tried _really hard_ to break his selfish habit. He'd even gone so far as to enroll in Smallville University instead of moving back to his birthplace, and he tried hard to help out his Dad and grandparents with the farm as much as he could. Hell, he was even _majoring_ in agri-science.

But on the week of his twenty-first birthday, Conner and his Dad got into a major argument that once again resulted with Conner feeling like the most selfish being on the entire planet.

Not that being selfish changed the fact that Conner was right and his dad was wrong, of course. Nor did it change the unfairness of what Conner's dad was requesting.

"It's my birthday," Conner argued. "I should get to spend it where I want. The farm can do without me for three days, Dad."

"This isn't about the farm, Conner," his father argued. "It's about you wanting to go to _that city_ to celebrate."

"Ross and I have been planning this since freshman year," Conner said through gritted teeth. "I'm not skipping out on a trip we've planned for _four years_ to stay here in Kansas and have cake and ice cream with and grandma!"

"I wouldn't expect you to stay here, even though we _do_ want to celebrate the occasion with you." Dad was using the quiet voice, which Kon had learned over the years meant Dad was trying to control his temper. _Great_. "There's a perfectly nice bar here in _Smallville_ to celebrate at."

"I am not ringing in my twenty-first birthday at the lamest bar in the entire country. For God's sake, Dad, they use Christmas lights instead of neon signs. When people think 'redneck hick,' The Talon is exactly what they think of," Kon retorted. Not to mention that it was really creepy trying to get laid in a place owned by his father's childhood crush. "Besides, you know full well that I want to go to a _gay_ bar. The Talon does not fit the bill."

"There is one in Keystone. And one in Central City. Both are large and open and located in _nice_ cities."

"Both are _boring._ I don't want large and open for my birthday. I have large, open fields every fucking day-"

"Language, Conner," Ma interrupted from her spot washing dishes.

"Sorry, Ma." Conner sighed.

"Kon, Gotham City is a filthy, seedy place -" Dad began.

"Which is exactly why I want to celebrate my birthday there!" Conner snapped, feeling entirely selfish pleasure at the horrified look on his father's face. "And frankly, I'm an adult, it's my decision, and you can't stop me."

Dad couldn't stop him, and he didn't try. He did, on the other hand, spend the rest of the week making Conner feel even more selfish.

That didn't stop Conner from completing his pilgrimage to the filthy, dirty city in question, of course. It just put him in a bad mood for the entire bus ride there.

*******************

Conner, Clark Ross, and Lane Sullivan had been in Gotham for a full ten minutes when Kon began reconsidering the appeal of Gotham's filthy seediness. Two minutes after stepping off the bus, a very creepy looking _pimp_ \- they didn't have those in Smallville or Metropolis, Conner was sure - approached Ross and offered him a _job_ working as a male hooker.

Five minutes after stepping off the bus, the three of them were mugged.

Eight minutes after stepping off the bus, the three of them got lost trying to find a place that wouldn't _charge_ them to step in the door and ask directions to the nearest Western Union.

Ten minutes after arriving, the three of them were thrown in a cop car by a gang of over-zealous police who seemed to believe that the three of them were engaged in drunk and disorderly conduct.

And so, as the clock struck midnight and Kon turned twenty-one, he was stuck in a _very_ filthy Gotham jail cell. Beside him, Lane was cuddled close in an effort to escape the watchful eye of the dude with clown make-up who kept giving Conner's blond-headed friend some suspicious looks.

Creepy Gotham people. They didn't have any of those kind of freaks in Smallville _or_ Metropolis.

"It's going to be okay, Lane," Conner promised, shifting his body weight enough to block the smallest of his friends from the predator's sights. Kon was't sure that his efforts at baling hay had given him any noticeable upper body strength, but he was too afraid of Aunt Chloe's wrath if anything should happen to her son to give much thought to whether or not he could actually kick the goon's ass.

"Dude's on a bad PCP trip," Lane whispered. "Mom wrote an article about the growth of PCP use for the Ledger last month."

This had to be the very worst way to spend his twenty-first birthday ever.

His father's annoying little namesake was intent on making it worse. "We should have listened to your father, Conner," Ross said firmly. "He was right. Gotham _is_ an awful city."

"Shut up," Conner snapped. "Everything is going to be _fine._ I used my one call to contact my mother's attorney. As soon as Mercy gets a chance to talk to Mom -"

"Oh, please." Ross rolled his eyes as he curled up on the jail cell mattress next to what Conner was pretty sure was a blood stain. "Everyone knows your Mom is a total bitch. Why should she help us?"

It might have made Conner a bad son, but he certainly wasn't going to argue against his mother being an evil bitch. That wasn't the point, anyway. "Because I explained to Mercy why we are in Gotham and why I called _her_ instead of Dad."

"Ah." Ross seemed to notice the stain for the first time and quickly scuttled away from it. "We might be okay then. Lexa Luthor _is_ a total bitch, but she'll never let the opportunity to get one up on your Dad pass."

It took Conner's mother until three a.m. to bail them out, but the lawyer she sent them was able to provide them with enough spending cash to more than make up for a lousy start to their weekend.

Maybe - just maybe - Conner's twenty-first birthday could still be celebrated in style.

****

It was four o'clock by the time they'd managed to locate a bar that didn't look like it was full of people looking to rob them again _and_ was going to stay open log enough for them to celebrate Conner's birthday.

The Black Canary seemed to fit both specifications. The bouncers were friendly - and flirty- enough that they didn't freak Lane or Ross out, but both the redhead and the smaller blond man looked capable enough of kicking someone's ass that Conner knew he was going to be able to relax inside the bar without worrying that his Dad might have been right about this trip. Plus, it had a shirtless man with a great ass serving drinks at the bar, which had it's own type of allure.

But the greatest point in The Black Canary's favor was the fact that at four a.m. it was still crawling with people. Conner figured that if his family had stayed in Metropolis long enough, he might have discovered that _his_ city worked the same way, but being that the only bar he was familiar with was The Talon, Conner had grown used to the idea that everyone closed up shop by one, unless they wanted Uncle Pete to come lock them up for disturbing the peace.

Once inside, Conner wasted no time in guzzling down not one but two beers in celebration of _finally_ getting the chance to actually relax on his birthday. It was then, as he watched Lane promptly get drunk off the exact same amount of alcohol, and Ross try to flirt shamelessly with the shirtless bartender that Conner came to two realizations.

One, the people of Gotham really liked to dance. Two, by "dance," the people of Gotham really meant " come as close to having sex as you can without taking your pants off."

Conner decided right then - as not one but two strangers took turns grinding up against him while he was still on his barstool - that despite all opinions to the contrary, he really loved Gotham. The city may have kicked his ass since he'd gotten off the bus, but she clearly intended to make up for it by not only allowing him to finally make it to a bar that came complete with shirtless bartenders and beer strong enough to make your teeth numb on the second drink, but the beautiful, wonderful city was going to get Conner laid too. There were really only so many people at Smallville a person could have sex with, and Conner had exhausted his options on that front by the beginning of his second quarter at Smallville University. The promise of fresh meat called to Conner as he allowed the crowd of people to do their best to convince him which one of them was lucky enough to be picked to spend the rest of the night with him.

Preferably in the seediest, _filthiest_ hotel Gotham had to offer.

By four-thirty, Conner had narrowed his choices down to three possibilities when the right man walked in through the door and completely destroyed any chance anyone else in the room had of spending the night with Conner.

The stranger was perfect - okay, a little short, but the shear amount of muscles packed into the skin tight white shirt more than made up for it. So too did those jeans, which clung so tightly to the stranger's body that they truly could have been painted on, if the painter in question was a man in the business of custom-building fantasies for Conner's birthday.

Right now, Conner wanted nothing more than to start scrubbing that paint off, in order to get to the delicious present they were pretending to cover.

As a whole, the outfit made the stranger look even more out of place than Conner knew _he_ was. The boy might have been a native to Gotham, but it was clear he'd never stepped into a bar before.

It was only chivalrous of Conner to try to make the stranger more comfortable - if Smallville and living with Ma and Pa had taught him nothing else, it had taught him how to have good manners, even if in theory, his grandparents probably hadn't planned on him using their teachings to get laid. But if the end result of making the boy more comfortable was getting to peel off those clothes, well that would certainly be an adequate apology from Gotham about that whole mugging incident.

Swaggering over to the stranger, Conner gave him a face full of Kent charm. Conner figured if the charm in his genes was enough to make Aunt Lana and Aunt Chloe still go ga-ga over Dad after all these years, surely it was good enough to lure in Tight Fittin' Jeans boy. "I'm Conner," he announced.

Or maybe not. "Where's your hat?" the stranger asked in response.

"What?" Not the greatest display of intelligence, but to be fair, Conner'd had a rough night.

"Your cowboy hat. You look like you just stepped off the farm," the stranger answered. And really, Conner would have been offended, and hastily corrected the stranger by stating that he was from _Metropolis_ , which was a far larger, more impressive city than Gotham could ever _hope_ to be, except for the way that the stranger was surveying Conner, as though the $20 Kansas jeans and $5 t-shirt was remotely close to the type of body revealing outfit the stranger wore.

"I left my hat back at The Ranch," Conner responded, because even though the farm wasn't really a ranch, the stranger appeared to have some sort of cowboy fetish, and Conner could definitely stretch the truth a bit. He leaned forward, giving a leer that he hoped translated into _"I look even better naked."_  
  
The stranger grinned slowly. "I'm Tim," he offered, and Conner resisted - for the most part - the urge to roll the name around on his tongue to see how it tasted.

"Well, Tim, you look like you're used to pansy-ass champagne, but seeing as how this bar doesn't sell that, I'll buy you a beer."

"Am I that obvious?" Tim actually sighed with what looked like disappointment, and Conner stifled a chuckle as he considered the possibility that Tim actually believed he was fooling anyone.

" 'Fraid so," Conner answered. "It's the jeans that give you away. Only the shirtless bartender is allowed to wear clothing that tight in a place like this without looking completely out of place. And by the time any pair of jeans gets that white and faded, they'd long since stopped clinging to your body."

The stranger stepped forward, closing the distance between them completely, and brushing the front of his jeans against Conner's, making the Kansas bought jeans seem pretty tight in certain spaces themselves. "Dance with me," Tim commanded. "And I'll tell you all about these tight fittin' jeans."

As they moved onto the dance floor, Conner kept his gaze focused completely on Tim, both because he wanted to discourage any of the previous possible sexathon partners from trying to cut in and because, well, there wasn't anything else in The Black Canary that was as worth of looking at as intently.

"This is my last week of freedom," Tim revealed. "I came from a rather affluent background, and in a week, I'll settle down with a nice girl with the same background and in time, we'll move out of our condo into a nice two story house more suited for our two point five kids and shaggy dog." Tim's fingers wrapped around Conner's waist, thumbs hooking into Conner's belt strap as the hands rested on the top portion of Conner's backside.

It was a nice sensation, and one Conner felt really bad about needing to pull away from. So he didn't quite yet. "So, you've got a girlfriend." Conner wanted to be dirty, filthy, and seedy in all the best meanings of the term with this guy but not if he was _taken_.

"Fiancé , actually," Tim corrected, pulling Conner back towards him as Conner started to pull away. "Don't worry. She understands...and is spending the entire week with her girlfriend."

"I see." Well, that made it okay, Conner supposed. As long as she knew what was going on, it wasn't cheating.

Tim nodded, those tight fittin' jeans grinding against Conner's as the Gotham Native purred up at him. "We both agreed that it would better for our future union if we reveled in our perspective fantasies before settling into our placid little yuppie lifestyle," Tim revealed. "It's only fair that you know why I'm using you before we go any further."

"I didn't come to Gotham to look for a husband," Conner answered with a shrug. "I'm game for reveling in the fantasy of your choice, city boy."

"In that case, come with me," Tim invited. "There's a hotel room with our name waiting on the key, cowboy."

Conner gave a backward glance to his friends, before deciding to leave Lane to his vomit, and Ross to his efforts at getting in the bartender's - and, apparently, one of the bouncers as well - pants as he left he bar.

Conner complain when Tim reached in the backseat to a retrieve a cowboy hat. If it meant getting to see inside those tight fittin' jeans, Conner was more than happy to role play with one of Gotham's resident freaks.

***

Conner had two days left on his Gotham trip, and he'd planned on spending each night in the safety - and air-conditioning - of his Holiday Inn.

But the _motel_ Tim drove them to was so far away from resembling the Holiday Inn that they didn't deserve to be listed in the same phone book. Actually, it wouldn't have surprised Conner if the motel _wasn't_ listed anywhere. From the look of it, it was likely to be the sort of place only shared between junkies in back allies - how the stranger had heard about it, Conner didn't know.

And while Conner had certainly wanted to go somewhere seedy and filthy, the stains on the ceilings and walls, along with the tiny droppings in the floor corners that _had_ to belong to rats gave the cramped room more of a _disgusting_ vibe. Not to mention, the lack of air conditioning that made it difficult to breathe, long before they'd started to work up a sweat.

By the third roach Conner spotted, he was beginning to rethink the whole seedy and filthy plan. In fact, he was thinking of high-tailing it out of the hotel and hitch-hiking back to the Holiday Inn if he had to.

The escape plan was immediately abandoned the minute those tight fittin' jeans fell to the floor. With a naked Tim in front of him, all that mattered to Conner was making Tim's fantasy come true. There was no need to come up for air for two days, and in that time, the yuppie and the cowboy set out to make the make the bed as filthy as the rest of the room.

***

By Monday, Conner and his friends were back in Smallville.

He was in the middle of shoveling out the third cow stall that he'd promised to clean to make up for the three days he'd been gone when his dad decided it was time for some more father-son bonding.

"How was Gotham?" Conner's dad actually managed to sound restrained when he asked, and not as though Conner had spent the last three days of his life in some lawless Babylon.

Which, actually, he had. Come to think of it, leaving Babylon might have hurt less. "It was fun," Conner responded, which technically wasn't a lie. It had been fun for exactly forty-three hours.

"I see." The elder Kent pushed himself up onto the wooden gate of Molly's stall before asking, "What was his name?"

Conner glanced up so sharply that his reflexes almost couldn't handle it, and he nearly tripped and fell into a nice, large cow patty. "What makes you think -"

"Pa always said that he and Ma were harshest when they were trying to keep me from repeating their mistakes. I never understood that, but they always swore I would when I had children of my own," Conner's dad commented. "And they were right. I spent my twenty-first birthday in Gotham, Conner, and I know...I met a dangerous, dashing prince charming I couldn't hold on to. I was trying to spare you the same sort of pain. It doesn't look like I was successful. "

Damn parents and their hypocritical ways. "What was his name?"

"Bruce. Yours?"

"Does it matter? He's gone back to his world, and I'm still stuck in mine." Conner sighed before leaning up against the stall and caving beneath his father's entirely too knowing gaze. "His name was Tim, and I don't even know why I'm so bothered about it. He belonged more in Mom's world than ours. Hell, his idea of a farm was a cowboy hat and two hundred dollar bleached jeans." It was just supposed to be harmless sex, Conner didn't say, because talking to his dad about his sex life was creepy. He wasn't supposed to still be thinking about the way Tim wriggled, moaned, and gasped beneath him, nor was he supposed to be disappointed that he'd never get the chance to explore any other fantasy Tim might have had.

He wasn't supposed to care about what Tim might have been like when he wasn't fucking a stranger in the filthiest motel in Gotham.

He wasn't supposed to wonder what Tim's last name was.

_Tim's_ stupid little cowboy fantasy wasn't supposed to have broken _him_ so hard.

Conner's dad jumped off Molly's stall and clasped his son by the shoulder. "It'll get better," the elder Kent promised his son.

"Really?" Because Conner hoped so, but right now, he was pretty sure that his father was flat out lying to him for the first time ever.

"In time, he'll be nothing more than a sweet memory of someone you had to leave behind," Conner's dad promised. "And by the time that day comes, the promise of everything that might have been won't hurt so badly."

"Thanks, Dad," Conner responded, because platitudes or not, it was nice to know that someone understood.

"Anytime, Son. See you at dinner." Conner's dad ruffled his hair affectionately before going back to the corn fields.

That left Conner to cleaning up cow manure, something that the more sadistic of his professors at Smallville University had informed him would make up a full 15% of the rest of his life.

No matter how long that ended up being, Conner knew he'd never forget the night he'd played cowboy to a dream boy in tight fittin' jeans.


End file.
